U.N. to Reassess Its Mission in Balkan Conflict / It will consider withdrawal

William Drozdiak, Washington Post

Published 4:00 am, Saturday, May 13, 1995

1995-05-13 04:00:00 PDT Paris -- U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali called yesterday for a complete review of the U.N. peacekeeping role in the Balkans after an intensification of fighting in Bosnia and the risk of a wider war in Croatia left the U.N. mission on the brink of collapse.

After holding crisis talks here with his top aides and commanders, Boutros-Ghali issued a statement saying he had ordered them to study alternatives to respond to the new situation, including the possibility of withdrawing the 22,000 U.N. troops from Bosnia now that a four-month cease-fire has lapsed.

U.N. sources said he acted because of deep differences within his staff, in New York and in the field, over a decision by Yasushi Akashi, the top civilian authority in the former Yugoslavia.

Akashi vetoed a request last Sunday by Major General Rupert Smith of Britain, the U.N. military commander in Bosnia, for NATO air attacks against Bosnian Serbs who were shelling Sarajevo and sniping at peacekeepers. Shelling killed 11 people in Sarajevo that day.

U.N. spokesman Joe Sills told reporters in New York yesterday that the situation in Bosnia is "very, very, very serious. I think there's an increasing feeling that . . . what we are being asked to do is becoming untenable."

Sills said it will be up to the 15- nation Security Council to make any decisions after the review.

France and Britain, which have sent the most troops to Bosnia, have demanded a thorough overhaul of the U.N. mandate as the price of maintaining their troops there. Senior French officials said that, at a minimum, their soldiers must have broader powers to shoot back and protect themselves.

In response to the French pressure, Smith told his soldiers yesterday to start shooting back if they were attacked. The instructions were issued a day after a sniper shot a French soldier in the head near Sarajevo's notorious "Sniper Alley."

On Thursday, Boutros-Ghali had delivered a strong plea to keep French forces in Bosnia when he met with Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, the likely head of the new government that will be named after Jacques Chirac takes over the presidency next week. But after the deaths of 33 French soldiers and with the peacekeeping mission looking more imperiled than ever, Juppe declared that the status quo is simply unacceptable.

Britain also has warned that it may be necessary to withdraw its troops from the U.N. force in Bosnia unless security is improved.

The refusal by Bosnia's Muslim- led government and rebel Serbs to extend a four-month cease-fire that ended May 1 has led to a surge in fighting and renewed strangulation by the Serbs of supply routes to Sarajevo. Within the past week, Bosnian Serb forces have cut the gas, power and water to the capital that the U.N. force is assigned to maintain for the city's 220,000 residents.

In addition, the Serbs have blocked U.N. deliveries of food and medicine, repeatedly taken U.N. soldiers hostage and recently intensified attacks against them.

A plan to withdraw the peacekeepers has been painstakingly prepared during the past few months by NATO military experts. At least 20,000 NATO soldiers, half of them American, may be needed to ensure the safety of the retreating U.N. forces if they must be evacuated under fire.